WOLVER-LEGO
Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk #1
Published Dec 21, 2005
One of the peculiar aspects of comics being low-brow entertainment is that the industry has acted as a system of preservation of illustration techniques that go back hundreds of years, with very little meddling from outside 'modernist' forces in the art world. While art and illustration trends mostly stay away from traditional techniques (and the hard work and knowledge necessary to perform them successfully), when it comes to the human form, comic books - - that is, superhero comics - - drive on in an obsession with muscles and embellishment so expressive that I think it would make Michelangelo nod understandably.
Using a number of updated classic drawing techniques is Leinil Francis Yu. An artist who lives in the Philippines, his past credits include Batman and Superman at DC Comics, including the mini-series Silent Dragon for Wildstorm. His ability for using fine lines to create texture and shadow, as well as form, is influential and popular, and hearkens back toward the styles introduced to comics by artists like Neal Adams. Yu is now working for Marvel Comics now doing a Hulk/Wolverine title Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk.
The story is self-parodying hokum in which Wolverine is enlisted by Nick Fury at S.H.I.E.L.D. to pursue the Hulk who has taken up residence in Tibet. This Hulk is the lord of a hundred or so girls in bikinis who apparently haven't a thought in their pretty heads, they just group about like guppies, pendulous breasts and air.
There are no Chinese occupiers in the Marvel Tibet, just a lot of snow and a lot of bikinis. Confrontationally speaking, Hulk and Wolverine meet up and Hulk renders Wolverine into two pieces. He then must then be assembled together again, the man's being diminished to a lego-like existence, told in flashbacks to the reader. There's humor but not a lot of humanity to the tale.
